1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a recorded message audio delivery system for use by an individual listener.
2. Background of the Invention
The presentation of tourist and/or other exhibitions has always been a problem. Visitors to exhibitions of any type require information concerning the exhibits. Such information may be provided by guide books, by written notices attached to each exhibit, verbally by guides accompanying a conducted tour, verbally by a pre-recorded announcement either individually made from equipment carried by the visitor or centrally in the location of the exhibit. Generally verbal presentation is preferred since the visitor's visual attention may then remain wholly on the exhibits.
There have been various difficulties in making a satisfactory verbal presentation. Among these are the fact that it is difficult to provide for simultaneous presentations in different languages and that it has been necessary for visitors to follow a set route conforming to the sequencing of the presentation. This may be true whether or not a guide person gives the presentation or whether it is tape recorded.
If individually portable tape recording apparatus is carried by each visitor, the problem of language may be theoretically solved by providing the visitor with apparatus which delivers messages in the language of his choice. However, this entails the provision of a large amount of apparatus by the management of the respective exhibition to allow for appropriate choice of apparatus specific to a particular language.
While some exhibitions are highly profitable tourist attractions, a very large number are cultural museums ("museums" is used here in its widest sense to mean any place of study including buildings, display grounds, gardens, battlefields or parts thereof, in which are preserved or exhibited objects of permanent interest). Often such museums are run by charitable organizations or on low budget government funding. In neither case is a large amount of money usually available for investment in large quantities of expensive apparatus.
With the expansion of the tourist industry, some exhibitions have been using individually portable message announcing systems which are operated to remotely from transmitters in each of several regions through which a visitor passes. The transmitters may transmit, for example, on the AM broadcast band of frequency or on the infrared wave band. Such devices have improved the form of presentation somewhat in that visitors may proceed through the exhibition of their own speed and, to an extent, may choose their route. However, it is still not possible for them to choose to hear specific information about a particular exhibit, nor is it possible to program different language versions of a tour alternately on the same device. Thus, in at least some of these systems, the user is not able to choose the desired message, and the number of messages per area is typically limited to one which covers the entire area including multiple exhibits. Such message may be too long for the convenience of the user or may lack detail.
Although it has not been possible for a listener to choose to hear any one message in the language of his pre-selected choice, at least one attempt has been made directed towards solving this problem. Such attempt is believed to have involved the use of radio frequency bands normally reserved for use by the hearing impaired. The use of such bands, as with the use of any other radio wave bands used, necessarily limit the number of different frequencies utilizable for transmission of different messages from a transmitter without interference. Nevertheless, an attempt was made to provide a choice of a very few, (believed less than four) different transmission frequencies which the listener might tune. It is believed that any practical embodiment of this concept is not now available.